About the Play:
In Caution, Lauren’s parents are, in a word, cautious; see the factors that separated and united them.
About the Author:
Lauren Yee has been a MacDowell Colony fellow, a Dramatists Guild fellow, and a member of the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group. She has been a finalist for the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Heideman Award, the Jane Chambers Award, the Jerome Fellowship, the PONY Fellowship, the Princess Grace Award, and the Wasserstein Prize. Her play Ching Chong Chinaman has been produced at Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, Minneapolis’s Mu Performing Arts, the New York Fringe Festival, New York’s Pan Asian Rep, and Seattle’s SIS Productions. Lauren is currently writing a new play for AlterTheater (slated for production in 2011). This summer she will attend the inaugural El Gouna Writers Residency along Egypt’s Red Sea and be in residence at the Hangar Theatre’s Lab Company, the O’Neill Conference, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD.
Lauren’s Forty Days to Forty Plays Interview:
OOB Festival (OOB): Tell us a little about your playwriting career. When did you start writing plays? What are some of your proudest accomplishments as a playwright?
Lauren Yee (LY): I always loved writing. But writing plays specifically came in high school, when I started working on short plays. Last September, I started working towards my MFA at UCSD’s graduate playwriting program, and it’s been an utter joy to constantly work on my writing and learn about myself as a writer. My play Ching Chong Chinaman has gotten a couple productions in the past few years. It just closed its New York premiere at Pan Asian Rep–and now it’ll get published by Samuel French later this year.
I’ve also had the good fortune to be a part of several great writing groups, including the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, which was an amazing, supportive environment. For me, the past couple years have been a nice building process–collaborating with artists I admire, growing what plays I think I’m capable of writing.
OOB: As mentioned before, you are a member of the Public’s Emerging Writers’ Group, as well as UCSD’s MFA program. How has being a part of various writers’ circles affected your work as a playwright? What is the most important thing you’ve taken away from these programs?
I’ve learned, most importantly, that writing is a long, long trek and working alongside these talented writers has definitely helped me to see the new possibilities in an idea and invigorated me about my work. No one else can do the work for you, but the company is definitely appreciated.
OOB: Talk about your entry to this year’s festival. How did you come to write this play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? What do you hope festival audience will take from your play?
LY: This play came from a class assignment: write a play about your parents’ first date. Luckily, my parents’ very first date provided some very fertile ground: 1. It took them four years for my father to ask my mom out on a date and 2. It almost didn’t happen (he got lost).
OOB Festival: What are some of the challenges that come with writing a play about your own life? Have your parents seen this play before; what was their reaction?
Writing about your life is definitely an interesting experience because obviously you know the characters quite well, but at the same time, they’re somewhat capsules of your life at a certain point.
My parents haven’t seen this play yet–I’m not exactly sure they know it exists. Hopefully, they’re appreciate how I interpreted a story that I heard so many times growing up. Honestly, it’s a nice reminder that despite being responsible parents for the past twenty-five years or so, they had their transgressive, uncertain, conflicted moments.
OOB: What is the history of your festival entry? Do you plan to hone and further develop?
LY: Caution has had a couple productions in one act festival thus far, and I’m hoping to take a look at the play again before the festival to hone some of the ideas in the play and the overall “feel” of it.
OOB: Tell us a little about your producer? How did you come to form your relationship together? If you are self‐ producing, please talk a little about that process—have you ever mounted your own work before?
LY: I’ll be working with my director Alex Mallory to mount this one. I actually started off producing my own work anyway, and I was able to learn a lot from the experience. Producing your own work makes you think about the nuts and bolts more clearly.
OOB: You obviously had a lot of success as a young playwright; do you have any advice for those who want to “break into” playwriting?
This may seem overly simple, but: get involved. Make friends with other theater folks, or at least make acquaintance with them. Nobody can do it alone, and most of the time if you’re looking for an actor or designer or director, you’ll ask someone you a) know and b) like (which can always lead to more opportunities for you and vice versa). Grow your career alongside other theater artists.
